Age Shmage
by Me262
Summary: Ben Skywalker and Myri Antilles meet at the dedication of a new memorial to the dead Rogue Squadron pilots. They develop a crush on each other. Ben's 14, Myri's 18
1. Part one

_**Age Shmage**_

**Author: DevBinks AKA Me262 AKA Captain-Kettch**

**Rating: K+**

**Beta: KillikTwilight**

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the following except the plot. The rest belongs to George Lucas, Del Rey publishing, and Lucas Arts. **

**Characters: All of Rogue Squadron, past or present. Ben Skywalker, and Myri Antilles**

**Timeframe: 40 years after the Battle of Yavin, a few months after Legacy of the Force: Betrayal**

**Summary: **Ben Skywalker and Myri Antilles meet at the dedication of a new memorial to the dead Rogue Squadron pilots. They develop a crush on each other. Ben's 14, Myri's 17-18

"You're learning to be a spy?"

"Yeah."

"What do you learn?"

"Well, I wouldn't be a very good spy if I told you, now would I?"

"But we're on the same side."

"What if the GA decides the Jedi are bad again. Then we wouldn't be on the same side."

"They won't do that; we've saved them too many times."

"Myri, is Ben bugging you?" Jaina asked, turning so her attention was on her brother's apprentice, and the young Corellian. "Because I'm sure Ben would love to be grounded for a week, cleaning the Jedi Order's X-wings."

"No, he's fine." Myri said smiling at the older woman who turned away. "You're learning to be a Jedi?"

"What else would I do? Look at who my parents are."

"Good point. So, what do you learn?" Myri asked, turning the tables on Ben.

"Stuff."

"Let me guess, you can't tell me because they're Jedi secrets."

"No, I can't tell you because there's food coming."

"What are you talking about?" Myri asked. She said looking around for the waiter droids.

"They're coming, trust me." Ben pointed to a tent that had been erected to prepare the food in. As he pointed the first of the droids came out and began serving. Ben watched hungrily as everyone was served in order of importance. As an apprentice, and a youth, he was one of the last, having to wait for the Galactic Alliance military dignitaries to be served, then the former Rogue Squadron commanders, then the members of the Squadron.

"You would think since our fathers started the squadron we'd be some of the first to get our food." Myri said to him.

"Look at it like this, you two," one of the Rogues, a young Twi'lek new to the squadron, said. "We're still getting served before the families of the squadron members."

"True." The talk quieted down as they were served their food by the droids.

Ben finished his food and waited patiently for others to finish. As he sat there thinking Myri looked over at him.

"You eat faster than a Hutt."

"So what? I'm hungry." Ben defended himself.

"Myr, don't tease him." A voice said from behind the two. "I happened to have finished before it was brought out."

"Uncle Wes." Myri said turning to look at him. "What are you doing over here? Shouldn't you be with the rest of the old men?"

"Old, me!" Wes said clutching at his heart. "Never! I wouldn't be over here if I were old. They said I was too juvenile and I should join the other kids." The kids were the newer members of Rogue Squadron.

"Major Janson," A Krish captain said from across the table. "I hear that you enjoy games."

"That I do." Wes said. "Little Skywalker, if you're smart, stay away from the Antilles family. They have no taste in jokes. Wedge is still mad over Kettch. After all, it's not like I made him wear the little 'wok." Wes winked at him and walked over to the Krish.

"I wonder what he's talking about," Ben said, looking at him.

"I don't know – my father never talks much about Uncle Wes's pranks, but one time he did give me a stuffed Ewok. And my father almost shot him."

"I know what he's talking about." Jaina said. "You two know about Wraith Squadron, right?" Her two young companions nodded. "And how during the hunt for Zsinj they posed as the pirates?"

"Yeah, Uncle Han told me all about it." Ben said.

"Well when the Wraiths were on the asteroid base, Wes decided to provide a little comic relief and would move a stuffed Ewok around the base. Putting it in a locker, or in a simulator. Eventually General Antilles flew a TIE fighter against Zsinj and they installed a voice modifier that made him sound like a Ewok. So the next time he flew for Zsinj, to keep the charade up, he was able to strap it to himself somehow, and still fly."

Ben couldn't help but laugh at the description. "Oh I could see him. Trying to move and..." He trailed off in laughter again.

"Well now I know he would never let me watch that holoshow starring Ewoks." Myri said, giggling quietly.

_**There will be a couple more parts to this, depending on how it pans out.**_


	2. Part deuce

**Age Shmage part deuce**

Ben watched as the beings wandered through the holograms, stopping at random, and observing the pilots that were displayed. "It's amazing," a voice said from behind him.

"What is?" he asked, turning to look at Myri who stopped nearby.

"That all of these people are here. Some haven't seen each other in years."

"I guess it is." Ben shrugged. "My dad doesn't talk much about his time in Rogue Squadron. I guess he considers it part of his past, before he was Master Skywalker."

"Oh, it's hard for my dad to get away from it. When we were little he was always General Antilles, never just Wedge. I think he always wanted to get away from that. That's why we moved to Corellia after the War."

"I thought Corellians loved their pilots."

"We do! Don't get me wrong, but we also respect their privacy – at least, the majority of the people do. We also live in a complex designed for those famous Corellians who don't wish to be disturbed."

"I wish the rest of the galaxy understood that too. Whenever my dad or mom go out they have to do it almost in secret, or they get people following them everywhere." As he said this he looked at her, thinking how she was pretty, but to old to consider him as anything more than a cute little kid.

"That must be horrible." Myri glanced at her companion, who started to blush, as she had caught him staring at her. "Let's go look at them." Ben just nodded, too embarrassed to say anything.

"It looks like your kids have found each other." Gavin said to Luke and Wedge. the three were standing in front of the marker for Biggs Darklighter, Gavin's older cousin, and man who died protecting Luke during his run on the first Death Star.

"What?" Wedge asked, looking to where Gavin was pointing. "Skywalker, am I going to have to give your son the 'my daughter has two blasters, a father, and three so-called uncles who will protect her nobility' speech?"

Luke laughed but shook his head. "Probably not, Ben inherited my grace with the ladies. I don't think you have much to worry about." Luke watched as Myri laughed at something his son said. "And she's also, what? Four years older than him."

"She will be nineteen in a few months."

"Ben's fourteen. So five years older."

Unnoticed by the three of the four former squadron leaders, Wes Janson overheard their conversation and plans started to formulate in his mind. He snuck away pretending to be looking at the various holograms, and headed towards a dour-faced man – Hobbie.

"So there we were, just sitting in shock; Tahiri's bare toes millimeters from where the lightsaber had gorged a mark in the ground." Ben finished his story to Myri's laughter.

"And you all just sat there when the lightsaber flew off of her belt?"

"Well yeah, the oldest out of us was eleven, we hadn't a clue what was going on. We thought it was part of the lesson."

"On Vong culture?" Myri snickered at this. "Are all young Jedi that…"

"Stupid?" Ben offered. "Some are, but most of the boys were distracted by how pretty she was."

Myri rolled her eyes. "How cute. The wittle Jedi had a cwush on their teacher."

"You can't honestly tell me you've never had a crush on a teacher."

"Well, I may have." Myri said coyly.

"Was he starry?" Ben asked, faking a soprano and batting his eyelashes.

"You have pretty eyelashes." Myri said changing the subject. "I wish mine were as long as yours."

"They look girly." Ben said quietly, they were next to the first hologram.

"What's wrong with me looking girly?" Myri said putting her hands on her hips.

"Nothing, you look pretty enough now, though." Ben said it all quickly, and in one breath, while looking at the hologram. He read the plaque to himself, assuming Myri was doing the same.

While he did that Myri studied his feature, thinking to herself that he was kind of cute, for a fourteen year old. Give him a few years and he'd be handsome. Her face blushed as he looked over at her, catching her staring at him, this time.

"So who is he?" Myri asked, covering for her stare by looking at the hologram.

"Jek Porkins." Ben said from what he had read on the plaque. "Apparently he died at Yavin."

"Oh, Piggy." Myri said recognizing the name. "My dad told Syal and I about him. When we were learning how to fly, he told us to always keep the inertial compensator down a few percent, so that we would know what was happening. Apparently he didn't, and that's why he wasn't able to pull out of a dive that put him into the Death Star."

"That's horrible… to die like that." Ben shook his head as the two moved on to the next hologram.

"I couldn't imagine being a fighter pilot. I don't know how Syal does it; always a second away from death."

"It's fun." Ben said smiling, at Myri's look he explained. "At least that's what Jaina says. She's training me to be a pilot."

"I thought you could already fly."

"Oh, I can. But she's teaching me how to fly fighters. Right now I can only fly shuttles and speeders." He shrugged. "I think she's also trying to convince the Council to create a permanent Jedi squadron, instead of just having them use whoever's available."

"Okay."

"If you're going to be a spy won't your life always been in danger, too?"

"Sort of, but I'm not going to be a spy myself. I'll be a spy catcher."

"But that's still plenty dangerous. Spies do crazy stuff in tight spaces." Ben said recalling when he had to strip to his underclothes and run through the Centerpoint Station.

"I'm sure, but I'll be in control of the situation, not them."

"It's easy to deceive somebody that thinks they're in control." Ben kicked at a stone that was on the ground. "Or to underestimate somebody."

"That sounds like personal experience." Myri stated looking over at her young companion.

"I can't say; Jedi secrets and all."

**_A/N_ sorry about having to reupload this chapter, I didn't realize that FFN started cutting down spaces. So I had to fix the scene change. Sorry again.**


	3. Part Trip

The room was dark and dingy, a single low power glow panel trying to penetrate the corners and hidden patches of duracrete beneath the cleaning and repair droids. This was the room that Wes and Hobbie found themselves in after some of the other Rogue Squadron members had discovered their, or rather Wes's, plan to force Myri and Ben together. Wes was looking at the droids trying to find a way out, while Hobbie just sat on the floor, glaring at Wes. "What did I do to you?" Wes asked, finally breaking the silence that had prevailed since the two had been locked in the storage room.

"I'm locked in a storage room." Hobbie said without inflection, "I'm locked in a kriffing storage room, with an over grown child. I'm locked in a kriffing storage room, while many of our former squadron mates are out there rediscovering the joy of being together."

"Oh be quiet, I'll get us out of here." Wes said looking at the next droid.

* * *

"How many times have you been shot at?" Myri asked as the two sat playing a game of see-who-can-run-out-of-questions-first.

"In a training simulation, or for real?"

"Real, of course."

"Well, a few times, I can't remember really. It's all just such a blur. Have you ever been shot at?"

Myri, was lost in thought as Ben finished his answer, amazed that a kid had been shot at, and almost killed. She was snapped out of her revere when Ben waved his hand in front of her face. "So have you?" He asked again.

"What? No, at least not with real blaster bolts. But stinger bolts still hurt." She reached up and rubbed her shoulder where she had been hit earlier in the day by a stinger bolt.

"I know! I was distracted one day during lightsaber training, and I got hit at least a dozen times. I still have a couple scars from where they hit twice." He reached for his sleeve, but then realized how much like a little kid this made him look and he stopped. "Have you ever seen a nebula up close?"

"No, but I've always wanted too, they look so beautiful." Myri said with a smile, maybe he wasn't so immature after all.

"Yeah, they're really cool. Especially when you shut down the lights. And go dark. Then the cockpit or room is just lit up by the nebula." Ben grinned and thought of a good simile, "it's kind of like when you're near a holo-ad, and it's dark outside."

"Oh, okay, that would be cool to see. I'll have to find a way to go out to Ethos's Nebula."

"You should." Ben watched as some of the more inebriated members of Rogue Squadron decided to begin singing a song of tribute, describing the ways a fighter pilot could die. He laughed as they included more humourous ways such as slipping in a puddle, or tripping as you climbed out of your cockpit.

"Myri!" A voice called out, a female figure was approaching, it was Iella Antilles. "Help me with your father, he's about to prove to the younger members that he can still take any of them in a hand-to-hand fight."

"Okay, mom." Myri stood up and smiled at Ben. "Well, I guess I'll see you around, Ben." She leaned over as her mom walked away and pecked him slightly on the cheek. "It was nice to meet you."

She walked away as Ben sat there, the red in his cheek, matching the red of the paint on Wes's face as he sat down. "What's wrong with you Little Skywalker?"

"I'm just wondering how Myri could kiss a kid like me." Ben said, thinking that Wes would understand.

"You're worried about age?" Wes asked, standing up. "Well age shmage! You will have her, if it's the last thing I do!" He struck a striking pose, making Ben laugh. "Gagh!" He shouted as a woman came up behind him and grabbed him by the collar.

"Wes I don't know why I put up with you." She said dragging him by the collar away.

"What was that about?" Jaina asked as she sat down and drank the lomin ale that Wes had left on the table.

"I don't know, Jaina. I think Wes is going to get in trouble." Ben said as confused as anybody else.

Hobbie was the next to arrive at the table. He was also covered in red paint and looked even grimmer than ever. He quickly had the waiter droid bring him a strong drink and downed it.

"Hobbie, why are you covered in red paint?" Jaina asked as his look softened slightly.

"Wes tried to get us out of that storage room by activating a painting droid." Jaina and Ben laughed at the humour that Wes could still cause, even as an old man.


End file.
